Breathe In
by Sapphira2
Summary: “Water slowly trickled down his body, clinging to the faint dusting of pale hair trailing over the expanse of his chest. Droplets glimmered in the light of the setting sun. Setting his skin afire…” Part Eight in Reflections Series…


"Breathe In" 

**__**

**Part Eight in the "Reflections" Series,**

**written by Sapphira**

**Short Story Based on the WB TV Series "Tarzan"**

**Song sung by PaloAlto**

**~*~**

**Disclaimer: **Don't own any of it… not the characters, the music, or the series in any form… I am making no profit off of this, or ANY of my other fanfics… I'm writing it purely for my own enjoyment, and hopefully for the enjoyment of some of the fellow fans.

**Distribution: **If you want it, you can have it… just drop me a line and tell me where it is going… ;)****

**~*~**

**Author's Note – **This is the eighth part in an on-going series of mine, and is the sequel to "I'm With You", "Lies", "Fallen", "Forever", "Hollow", "Nothing Thicker Than Blood", and "Dangerous Parallels" … Although all of these stories CAN be read as stand-alone pieces, I do hope that you will take the time and read all of them in order, if you have not done so already… Enjoy!

This contains many, many spoilers… especially for the ending of "Emotional Rescue", as this story contains a between-the-lines look of what Jane was thinking and experiencing throughout the entire 'shower scene'… Sorry, but I just couldn't resist… it was just too good a scene to pass up. (wink) 

~*~

**Summary – "**He watched her with eyes the color of pale sapphires. Wet hair swung freely about his face and water slowly trickled down his body, clinging to the faint dusting of pale hair trailing over the expanse of his chest. Droplets glimmered in the light of the setting sun. Setting his skin afire…" Part 8 in Reflections Series… 

~*~

** "Breathe In"**

She had missed him with every fiber of her being.

She hadn't wanted that to turn out to be the case. Didn't want to admit to something like that, when she had finally gotten what she had claimed to wanting time and time again. But yet not a minute had gone by since John had left her life where he hadn't dominated her thoughts.

She had held out hope as the days passed, that things would change. **_It_** would change, and she would finally be content with the knowledge that he was safe with Kathleen and that it was all for the best… and then she would just get back to the life she had once had before all of this began.

It didn't. It only got worse. And for a woman like her that had always prided herself on having an independent lifestyle, it had been a constant source of irritating frustration.

She still remembered the absurdity of that one morning in that back alley when she had found herself being attacked by that thug that her and Sam had been chasing after. She had chewed herself out time and time again for that one moment in which she had found herself looking up to the rooftops like some defenseless little creature, waiting to see if John would suddenly appear out of thin air like he always tended to do when she was in trouble. 

Part of her had really been hoping that he would. Not because she needed to be saved, but because she had found herself so starved for the chance to see him again.

But then she had snapped out of it, and had handled it herself like she was supposed to do. Ridiculing herself all the while for having even allowed it to have gone that far… And okay… maybe enjoying beating the stuffing out of that guy a little more than she normally would have. 

At first she had tried to convince herself that missing John was nothing more than simply just an adrenaline withdrawal, as she had told Sam later on in that same day. She hadn't wanted it to be anything else. Because if it was, then that would mean things had progressed much too far where John was concerned, which would then mean that she was in much more trouble than she was ready to admit just yet.

But she didn't seem capable of stopping herself from further pressing her fortune. She had had John out of her life, and she had no legitimate reason to see him… that is, until Richard Clayton had given her his necklace.

She hadn't needed to give that necklace back to John personally. She could have left it with Kathleen, and high-tailed it back out that door like the smart girl she was supposed to be, but oh, no… she just **_had _**to take it to him herself. Just **_had_** to have that excuse to finally lay eyes on him again after a couple of weeks apart.

What was wrong with her? Damn it, he was like an addiction to a very dangerous, powerfully alluring – **_illegal _**– drug she couldn't quite kick. Everything just always seemed to lead back to John, no matter what she tried.

And then she had seen him, and once again, everything else that should have been important just flew straight out the window. 

There had been a sadness to his eyes. A subtle frustration and listlessness – depression even – shining there. It brought back the memories of the last time that they had been together, and how badly that had ended. 

Her suspicions about what she had seen in his eyes then, had now been confirmed. Her unexpected rejection had cut him to the quick, and it was a pain that he had been carrying with him ever since.

In that moment, she had wanted nothing more than to erase it. Take it all away, and ease the torment that he had been experiencing. Despite the complete contradiction of her supposed interest in his life that that had presented.

His resulting confusion had been well deserved. She didn't even know what **_she_** had meant. And then Sam had called, and she had found herself lying – noticing a pattern here? – and it wasn't until she had already left the atrium that she had suddenly wondered what John had thought of that. That last look he had given her, before disappearing into the shadows of the surrounding foliage… it had summed up quite nicely what he must have thought of her phone conversation.

Once she had gotten back to her car, she had had the insane desire to take a moment and smack her forehead against the steering wheel a few times.

But the confusion of the day had only just begun. Her conversation with Darcy had hit her like a wrecking ball. As she and Sam had been walking out of the apartment complex, she had been so lost in thought with an unfamiliar coldness clenching at her gut, that even Sam had picked up on it.

She had once thought that there would be no way that she would ever allow herself to be compared to a woman like that… but that is exactly where she had found herself… And it had been her doing the comparison.

Darcy had referred to the butterflies and adrenaline of being in love with such an intense guy. Well, Jane knew all about that… which was now why she was so worried.

She knew what guys like Gary were all about… that was why it was so easy for her to provoke them. Hell, her just being a woman was enough to provoke them most of the time. She saw something in them. Something that didn't just disgust and offend her on the level of her being a cop, but on the level of her being a woman. It was personal. 

There was something in their eyes… something they all shared in some form or another if one looked hard and long enough. It made her skin crawl. 

But for some reason, there were those women who didn't see it… or just chose not to. She had sworn never to let herself become that blind… but lately she had been wondering if maybe, just maybe, her and Darcy weren't that very different at the moment.

She had never felt like this before. Never felt such a concentration of her entire self on just one person. The constant torrent of emotions were overwhelming at times, and yet she had found herself willingly losing herself to them time and time again. 

And the things she did for John… they weren't exactly the things that people in supposedly healthy relationships did, she knew that for a fact. She had just seen it with Darcy. You didn't give up the rest of the world for one man. You didn't drop everything in your life – friends, family, school, work – for a man. You just didn't.

So why was she feeling like that was exactly what she had been doing?

Sam's constant questioning and obvious displeasure hadn't helped. And then when the whole nightmare with Nikki had begun, it had made something inside of her snap.

John never would have met Nikki if he hadn't been doing just like Jane had asked him to do back at the atrium. He had dropped by. Probably thinking that she was home early from work, because of the noise coming from inside of her room. 

The window had been open. It always, **_always_** was. She could never force herself to lock it, even those few times where she had been so intently furious at the rest of the world. It had caused a few raised eyebrows from Nikki, but other than that, her younger sister had wisely left alone the topics of possible burglars or the increased heating bill every month. 

It was crazy, she knew… but Jane just couldn't seal that window. Couldn't lock him out.

Maybe that should have been enough of a hint for her over the last month, that no matter what she told herself or the rest of the world, she wasn't ready to let him go and move on. 

She wasn't ready for this to be over.

It had been natural to expect Nikki to ask for John's help. She had already heard about how John had helped Jane time and time again on various cases. And it was also to be **_very_** expected that John would want – no, need – to help. But nothing had prepared Nikki for the way that John did help. She hadn't been expecting nor prepared for what had – rather inevitably – happened. 

Nikki had thought that John would simply provide muscle if need be, but she hadn't quite comprehended how differently John was wired versus other men. He had grown up in a world where you either killed or incapacitated whatever threatened you or others, or else you didn't survive, and the ones you were protecting didn't survive.

But when Jane had ran into that room, expecting one thing, and yet finding something else entirely, with her sister standing there in the middle of it, the constant bombardment of all of those doubts she had been having over the last couple of days, had come rushing back to the surface… and she had lashed out. She had lashed out badly. 

The idea of Nikki in danger… something inside of her just snapped. And she was afraid. She was afraid that if Nikki had tried to intervene, if she had tried to stop John, she might have accidentally gotten hurt. Not on purpose, because all along she still couldn't believe that John was capable of hurting someone, especially a woman, in that regards. 

But still… It opened up too many possibly bad case scenarios that she didn't want her sister exposed to.

But she never should have verbally slammed John the way that she had. That hadn't been at all fair. Especially the quip about Michael. She knew all too well how that night had gone down. Knew that it had been Michael who had allowed himself to get out of control. He had pursued John, and had pumped a damn bullet into him, for heaven's sake. John could have killed him long before Jane had gotten up on that rooftop, but he had refrained. And when she had ordered him to stop it, he had. It had been Michael that had made that final move. He had charged John, and had taken them both over the edge. 

Jane had wondered more than once if, for some split moment in time revolving around a complete loss of sanity, if Michael had done that on purpose. If his intent was to take John down with him because he didn't want him to possibly be left with Jane.

It was thoughts like that, that she had finally forced herself to stop having. Thoughts like that had almost driven her crazy. 

She didn't put John in the same category as Gary and his type. Never had she done that. But, he was so violent and feral at times. 

It was hard for her to believe that he could be like that, giving all outward appearances of being so completely out of control and animalistic, and yet then having the ability to rein himself in quick enough, maintaining such a high level of control that she never would have initially thought him capable of, in order to keep from accidentally hurting the wrong person. In order to keep from turning on the same ones that he was trying to protect. 

Her problem hadn't been so much that she was afraid he would be abusive… but that she was having a hard time comprehending that he **_wouldn't._**

John was such a constant contradiction that never ceased to baffle her. She had never met anyone like him. That was the problem. He defied any known standards she could have tried to place about him. Which is why he could be so unpredictable… and why that was the source of her uneasiness.

But every time it got to a point where she started to think like that, that John could be capable of hurting her or another innocent, she couldn't help how her mind immediately went swinging back to that moment when she had been taunting Gary in order to get him to try to accost her so she would then be able to put him back behind bars in order to buy Darcy some time to finally get her head on straight. How that look in his eyes had risen to the surface. That same dark hatred that for some mysterious reason placed all of its focus on women. It was in the same category of what she had seen just minutes prior when he had been about to leave the Precinct. The way he had looked at her as if she was a piece of meat. A thing. Not a person. Not a human being. 

He had looked at her like she was something that he thought he would enjoy trying to break. 

And then, right before he had turned on her, John had dropped down out of nowhere. He didn't say anything. Didn't go into attack mode. He just stood there, hands calmly at his sides. For all the world looking just like a casual pedestrian… but the tension in his body and the aggressive look in his eyes had spoken volumes as well… But it had been in a completely different language than the one that Gary knew.

He had turned that same look on her when she had nearly exploded on him. And what she had seen there had cut her short. Halting the words sitting there so heatedly on the tip of her tongue. She had suddenly found herself unable to muster the energy to explain to him what it was she had been trying to do, because it **_didn't_** make sense. Not really. That she would have to result to such drastic measures to get that guy back in jail where he belonged, only proved the existence of the holes in the judicial system that John had been so obviously pointing out to her over the last month and a half. 

He wouldn't have understood why she would have to place herself in such physical danger, and moreover, how in the world could she think that he would just stand there while someone tried to punch her teeth down her throat and not do anything about it.

After she had walked away, Sam had confronted her yet again on all of this, and although Jane could understand his concern – even share it a little bit – she had just figured something out, even though it took a little while after the mess of that day finally played out, to completely process it.

The way John looked at her was the complete opposite of Gary. And what she saw there didn't even come close to making her skin crawl with disgust.

That should have been all that she had needed to know… but it took the near loss of her sister to finally get across to her mind what her heart had already believed from day one.

The near-disastrous horrors of the events on that bridge wasn't something that she was going to get over anytime soon. 

She had thought she had been prepared for anything, but coming upon that scene… something dark and ugly had wrapped its fist around her heart. It was something that she had never felt of that magnitude before, and it had turned her body literally into ice from the terror.

The most important people in her life had been up there on that bridge at the same moment. And they had all been in danger from the same threat. A threat that she had caused. That she had provoked. 

John had been writhing on the concrete. Obviously hurt. A jolt of freezing adrenaline had hit her at first, when she hadn't been sure whether or not he had been shot. Gary had a gun at Nikki's head. Threatening to kill her. Sam was moving in, firearm drawn, ready to blow Gary's brains out, but also in the process putting his own life at risk.

In that moment, Jane had never felt so torn. She had no idea who she should go to. She had been so afraid that Gary had already shot John, and if that was the case, what was to stop him from bleeding to death?

But then, one split second later, he had moved enough to see that there was no blood pouring out of his body. That didn't mean that he wasn't injured. Her next guess had been that Gary's Cherokee had possibly hit him. But it meant that, for the moment, there was nothing she could do for him.

She hadn't liked that feeling. Hadn't liked the sensation of being forced to choose between those that she had come to care for most. 

Turning her focus to Gary and Nikki, she had had only one clear thought. No ones else was going to get hurt on account of her actions. She had already promised Sam that. She was going to stick to that by whatever means necessary. 

If Gary wanted something to break, then fine… he could break her. He would most assuredly pay for it with his life, as she had no doubt that Sam would see to that… But there was no way on this side of hell that she was going to let that depraved cretin take anyone else with them. 

All throughout her offering herself up to Gary, she had been aware of John. When she had sensed that he was up and moving around, something in the general vicinity of her heart eased. She knew how fast John could move. Gary didn't. 

She kept her arm out on purpose, even though it became quickly apparent that Gary wouldn't take it. He would, however, divert the aim of that pistol from her sister's temple to aim at Jane. She didn't pull back. She didn't even so much as flinch. She just placed all of her trust in the two men who had positioned themselves on either side of her throughout the entire nightmare as she saw Gary's finger begin to tighten on the trigger.

John took her to the ground as the bullet whizzed mere inches above her head… and the sound of Sam's repeated gunfire rang in her ears as his bullets found their mark.

It had been beautifully orchestrated… up until Jane had looked up just in time to see Nikki's terror stricken face as she was pulled over the banister by Gary falling form. Plunging into the frigid water below. Her screams cut off as the water closed over her head. Sucking her under.

In that moment, she had felt the same thing that she had up on that rooftop a little over a month ago… and it wasn't a feeling that she had **_ever _**wanted to experience again. 

She had seen it all again… and like before, there had been nothing she could do to stop it. 

But John did something. He went in after her. He was already on the move practically before Nikki's body had hit the water.

Nikki was a good swimmer… but a combination of physical and mental trauma of the shock of the temperature of that water, and the resulting hysteria could be enough to drown even the most experienced of swimmers. Disorientation can hit so fast, that they wouldn't even know which way was up anymore.

At a time where her sister's life had hung in the balance, John had tipped the scales in their favor… and had brought Nikki back to her.

In that moment, she had known… John **_was _**incapable of hurting anyone who was an innocent. Regardless of the situation or how feral he became. Somehow or other, it just wasn't one of the many exotic facets that made up who he was. If there was one thing she should never doubt again, it was that. 

Not that her concerns and fears weren't legit… at least in part. But in that moment, she had finally seen what it was she was really afraid of. What she had really been questioning… And it hadn't been John. 

It had been her. 

It hadn't been John that she had been comparing to Gary… it had been her comparing **_herself_** to Darcy.

She **_had_** given up so much for him. She **_had_** stressed all the relationships in her life in order to protect him. And it had frightened her to think that she would do all of that, for what felt like such personal reasons. 

Because it was personal. It always had been. From day one she had tried to push John away in the hopes that it wouldn't become that way… but what she hadn't allowed herself to see, was that it already was. It had been from the moment that he had caught her wrist as she had almost fallen to her death, and she had found herself looking up into a pair of almost inhumanly beautiful eyes.

She could tell herself whatever she thought necessary. She could claim that it was based on something else entirely different than it was… she could even decide to fear it, and try to fit it with a completely different identity like she had been trying to do over the last few days… but she couldn't change what was. 

And she could no longer tell herself that it was a bad thing. Not anymore. Not after everything that had happened.

Letting out a deep sigh, Jane tossed a crumpled bill in the direction of the cab driver as he pulled up in front of Kathleen Clayton's – and now John's – home. Then proceeded to open the door. Sliding off of the vinyl seats into a standing position on the cracked sidewalk. The cool wind brushing against her face and hair and cloths, as she resolutely walked up to the front door. 

Now she just had to figure out a way to convey her newfound assurances to John.

~*~

The first thing that always hit her every time that she found herself entering the atrium, was the sensation like she was stepping into another world. Coupled with the resulting disorientation, as if a part of her that tied her to the City and her life there gave way. Some nearly invisible tether that had been broken temporarily for the remainder of her stay in this strangely hypnotically beautiful place. 

She could honestly say that there really wasn't another place like this in New York that she knew of. All the various gardens and habitats designed to be refuges of a sort still carried the traits of the city. Still carried the element of controlled perfection. Of landscaped designs created by man. 

You could visit those places, and even appreciate the beauty they offered… but you never forgot where it was that you were. You never forgot about the existence of the city. How could you? It was New York, after all.

But here… it wasn't controlled. Granted, the trees and flowers and greenery wasn't exactly native to this room, or even to this country, but try telling it that. A controlling hand tending it had long ago been removed, and it had since then taken on a mind of its own. Creating a small, twisting – chaotic yet not – oasis, and in that, a naturalistic purity. An incredible likeness of the jungles in which it patterned itself after. 

No wonder he found such comfort here.

It was nearing sunset, and the twilight shone brilliantly through the glass encasement. It's rich golden light casting shimmering shadows of its mixture of light and heavy impressions over the emerald green foliage, catching upon and causing to sparkle boldly here and there with different hues on the various flowering buds. 

Every time she came here, it forced her to forget the cold world outside as its warmth enveloped her. Bringing to her a variety of the different scents… The sweetness of the flowers, the damp mustiness of the soil, the sometimes sharp, sometimes woody, sometimes crisp scents of the greenery… It wasn't just a place that you viewed; it was a place that you inhaled. That you experienced. You either took it in with all of your senses, or you turned around and left. There was no other option left available to you, almost as if **_it_** wouldn't have it any other way.

Much like its current occupant, she mused silently to herself. Letting the thought slip away as she glanced around. Finally crossing over the threshold as she did so.

"John?"

Frowning slightly, she turned back around, calling out his name again. Usually it didn't take him very long to appear to her when she called. He always knew when she was there. He apparently seemed to know when she was coming, even before she ever stepped foot in the atrium sometimes. And he was always watching her.

But she had become very adept at sensing over the past month when his eyes were on her… and she wasn't sensing that at all. 

Turning towards the left, she headed in that direction. Hearing the sound of water nearby. That was odd. She hadn't recalled there being a fountain in here before. Maybe it just hadn't been turned on at that time. Fountains in atriums like this were supposedly commonplace. Added to the whole atmosphere and whatnot, and provided soothing white noise to drown out any sounds created by the city that the glass walls didn't. 

Even though very little had been done to the atrium since John had moved in, Jane was sure that some basic repairs had to have been made. Like getting the proper water sources turned back on, and the humidifiers working. Not to mention heat. Winter was coming on fast in the City. It would take heat in order to keep the tropical plants flourishing here from dying off with the first freeze. 

Curious about the exact source of the water, and wondering if maybe the sound of it had drowned out her calls, she headed in that direction. Cautiously preparing herself for John to suddenly leap out at her as he tended to do, even as she weaved in and out of the thick foliage. The slender tendrils branching out from broad leaves brushing gently up against her hips and thighs. Some draping down from above and rubbing up against her face and palms as she pushed them out of the way of her vision. Ducking down as she moved through the tunnel that the particularly thick canopy of greenery above made. 

Hearing what sounded like a whole lot of water spilling from some unknown source growing stronger, she turned her head in the direction of it. Bemused, and ducking once again to keep her hair from tangling in the wealth of rich greenery surrounding her, she rounded on the section of the foliage that formed sort of a partition, which was blocking her view.

Looking around that and into the enclave hidden behind it, she hadn't known what she had been expecting to see… But the sight that **_did_** welcome her knocked the breath out of her, and sent her pulse jumping through the roof.

John was standing there, only a few feet away. His back to her as he stood under a heavy spray of water pouring down on top of him. Plastering his blond hair, now the color of darkened honey, against the back of his nape. 

Eyes widening in momentary shock, she could only stare at the sculpted expanse of his shoulders and back. At the play of muscles underneath the wet golden hued skin. Still baring the tan of the jungle he had been forced to leave behind. 

The water sheeted off of him. Pouring over his arms and running down the line of his spine in a never-ending torrent. Drawing attention to the carved perfection of his body. 

He was beautiful, there was no other way to say it. She had never seen another like him.

It wasn't just physical attraction, although there was plenty of that… he was like a living work of art. He was just too perfect to be anything else. His beauty knew no limits. She would have said it was just simply good breeding and a profitable turn of the genetic dice, but she wasn't so sure. If he had grown up under the mantle of wealth and privilege and security, and had never been exposed to the rigors of the existence that he had been forced to undertake, she honestly didn't believe that he would have become what she saw right now in front of her. His beauty wasn't just in his looks. It was in the feral yet gentle heart buried underneath it all. Surrounded by a soul that seemed to be tied so intimately to hers, and it was that connection that she knew wouldn't exist, if he hadn't become the person that he had in that jungle, and always would be.

**_//… Your car crashed, buckled up from heaven…//_**

And although she had seen him partially without clothes in the past, this was very different. Maybe it was because of the fact that he was completely nude. Maybe it was the water, or maybe it was just the overwhelming combination of both… but in that moment she wanted something… **_needed_** something that she had told herself time and time again she couldn't have. 

She wanted him. In every way she could have him. Which she knew, was everything. He would give her everything of himself. It was only her that was holding her back from accepting.

**_//… Feeling like its poison, when there's no one around…//_**

So maybe it was time she started to change that.

Her eyes, snared by the image he presented, followed the path that the water was taking. Trailing with the water over the chiseled definition in the broadness of his shoulders… the powerfully muscled length of his back… the slight tapering of his waist… the indentations of his pelvic bone at the hips … and then her mouth went dry even as her gaze continued to drop lower.

Until that moment, she hadn't realized she could be jealous of such a simple thing as water. Now, she did all too well. Because, for an insane moment, all she could think of was her suddenly overwhelming desire to close the distance between them, so the tips of her fingers could follow their exact same course. To press her mouth to the curve of his shoulder-blade. Drinking in the moisture pouring over him. To sweep away the droplets clinging there with the tip of her tongue, and taste the contradiction of the smoothness of his skin against the unforgiving hardness of his strength… To wrap her hands around those powerful shoulders and to press the front of her body to his back. Water and all… Feeling him skin to skin…  

Maybe it was her sudden intake of breath at that rather vivid fantasy, or her rabidly increasing pulse at the possibilities it presented, or maybe some inarticulate sound she had made in relation to any of the above, but that glorious body tensed just as suddenly as he turned. The tendons along the strong columns of his thighs twisting and clenching, causing the muscles running up into his torso and upper back to flex. Rippling powerfully, effortlessly under the water. His head turned to look behind him, and strands of his sodden hair swung freely about his face and mouth and eyes. Some plastering to his jaw-line and his temple, as his rich topaz blue gaze impacted with hers, even through the curtain of water still falling over his face. 

**_//… Your whole life sectioned off from red ropes, wishing you could see who…//_**

The sight fully knocking the breath out of her yet again, even as she reacted instinctively by bolting back around the foliage partition. Hiding even though she knew it was too late. A little mortified of the turn her thoughts had taken. 

He had seen her. Now what was she going to do? She couldn't talk to him now, not when her body felt like it was slowly beginning to thrum with liquid heat and burning light in response to the intimacy of the moment she had just seen him experiencing.

Heart pounding in her chest for varying reasons even as she began to panic, she turned back around. For some crazy unknown reason looking back around towards that small waterfall in the hopes that maybe, just maybe he hadn't see her – who was she kidding? – …Only to find it empty of its occupant just seconds prior.

She couldn't do this. Not now. She couldn't face him when he was so adept at reading her every emotion, he would know what she was feeling. She would have to come back later when she had a chance to gather her thoughts again, and had her emotions – not to mention her libido – back under control.

**_//…But you're stuck in the ground, with this mini side-show…//_**

She turned with every attempt at fleeing, only to nearly run slamming right into John, who had somehow or other managed to get behind her, effectively cutting off any potential escape route, without her hearing or even realizing it.

Startled, her heart leapt she gasped. Eyes going as wide as a deer's caught in the headlights, she managed to barely keep her body from impacting into his. 

He stood there, watching her with those stunning eyes the color of pale sapphires. Wet hair swung freely about his face and water slowly trickled down his body, clinging to the faint dusting of pale hair trailing over the expanse of his chest. The droplets glimmering in the light of the setting sun. Setting his skin afire with the burning glow. 

****

**_//…Let the scenes go… It's obvious that you won…//_**

Mouth falling open for a combination of the overwhelming emotions running through her at that moment, her eyes went down yet again. She couldn't have stopped herself even if her life had depended on it. And it probably very well did, because the last thing she needed was yet another memory of the exotic perfection of his body keeping her at times restlessly, achingly awake in the middle of the night, and at others locked within the most erotic of dreams that she could never quite shake. 

**_//… Would you say it feels slow…? Would you stay home…?//_**

In the span of just a few seconds that she would most likely forever remember in perfect detail, her gaze swept over the view presented just inches away. Following inevitably yet again the path that the droplets took as they streamed from his face, running down the strong line of his throat and pooling in the hollows of his collarbone. As they trickled down over his shoulder and arms. Shimmering in the center-line of his chest, dancing over the lean chiseled plane of his abdomen, soaking into yet another dusting of golden hair, this time subtly growing thicker as it led a path further down below his navel, past the ridges of his pelvic bone and into…

**_//… How do you feel…?//_**

"O-Oh… my God." Heat suddenly roared to her cheeks, as she stuttered unthinkingly. Her lack of composure painfully apparent as she was suddenly snapped back to reality. 

****

**_//… It's how do you feel suffocated…//_**

Spinning away, she hastily poured out an apology even as she squeezed her eyes shut tightly as if in an attempt to block out the image that had probably just been permanently engraved on the underside of her lids. 

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

"Sorry, John… Sorry…" was all she could get out, before she slapped a hand over her mouth. She kept her back to him for a few moments, waiting until she heard the reassuring rustle of fabric and the sound of his motions. Struggling to get her breathing back under control, her heart out of her throat and back in her chest where it belonged, and her thoughts once more in order before she turned back around. She **_had_** come here for a reason, after all, and getting all hormonal hadn't been it.

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

Cautiously opening her eyes to look over at him once she thought it was safe, she saw that he was securely tying in place the drawstrings on a pair of dark loose-fitting pants that still clung gently to the damp lines of his body. The fabric darkening in places at the waistband and the front of his thighs as the water soaked through. 

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

"Uh…" she started, then stopped. Pulling her gaze resolutely away from the sight of the dampening fabric. 

Still feeling the effects of her mortification and surprise, her eyes met his a little shyly. He never said anything. Never gave any inclination of being embarrassed or upset. But he was… watching her rather intently. His disconcerting eyes never blinking as he held hers through the slight veil of damp hair hanging down in front of his expressive face. 

**_//…Look what's all around you…//_**

There was something in the depths of those eyes that caught at hers and would not turn loose. It was the hint of some darker, more elemental emotion. Smoldering there just beneath the surface. Something that had known **_exactly_** what the effect his body had had on hers. It was that same part of him that had known she would try to escape. The same part that hadn't just allowed him to approach her from head on as she had originally thought he might, but had swung around to get between her and any possible escape route. Cutting her off. Wanting to keep her there. Not leaving her with the avenue of another option.

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

If it had been anyone other than John, she would have felt a little threatened by that. But all she felt now was a sensation of being completely and utterly flustered. It was, after all, the way John thought. 

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

Trying to smile a little, she looked away from John wryly for a second, even as she began to feel a measure of control slipping back into place now that his… assets were fully covered.

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

Remembering back to why she had come here, she looked back up at him searchingly. Some of the tension leaving her lithe form as she met it, this time unwaveringly. Her heartbeat had once again slowed back down to a suitable speed, and its heavy pulse was finally out of her throat so at least now she thought she could talk.

**_//…Look what's all around you…//_**

"You followed Gary from the police station, didn't you? After I was so mad."

He didn't answer her, not that she had expected him to. He just watched her. Standing so perfectly still, as if concerned that any sudden movement on his part might cause her to retreat in some way. 

So she decidedly went to him.

**_//…Taking off in circles… Wondering if it's worth it…//_**

Taking a few steps forward, she closed some of the distance between them. Coming to a halt just a couple of feet away. 

"John…" her voice broke slightly as tears rose unexpectedly, burning behind her eyes. But she still met his gaze. Unwilling to hide the sincerity of her emotions from him, when she knew he could read them so well from within her. "You gave me my sister back. I owe you everything for that." Her throat tightened, and she took in a deep breath. Trying to steady her reaction to the events of that day.

Taking another small step forward, she reached out, almost tentative at first, and brushed the tips of her fingers over his temple, and down the side of her face. Pushing back the strands of wet hair, before then taking them between her fingers like she had always wanted to from the moment she had first seen him, and smoothed the damp silken texture between the pads of her fingers. 

**_//…You're innocent and ignoble…//_**

"And I know there's a part of you that most people don't see. A part that is very gentle and very kind."

**_//…But this main-line system, has a glitch in it… Its ignorance has been shown…//_**

He leaned his face into her caress ever so carefully. An expression of pleasure crossing over his features, as she allowed herself to voluntarily touch him in such an intimate way. Mimicking his similar touches that she had pulled away from so many times.

****

**_//…When you realize it's paid for…//_**

But she wasn't going to pull away this time. Not like that. And she was not going to be afraid of him, or what he did or did not represent. In some ways, she just knew him. **_Really_** knew him. She saw through the honest layers, and all the way down to his soul. 

**_//…Wondering where the story's gone…//_**

And what she saw there made her feel such a sense of safety and peace, that she knew she must have always known all along. She just hadn't wanted to let herself see inside another person so intimately. But it was who he was. He was the most extraordinary person she had ever met…

**_//… It's how do you feel…//_**

And she knew she was falling in love with him. 

**_//… It's how do you feel suffocated…//_**

"And I want you to know that I see it… And I'm glad that I do." 

**_//… Breathe in… Breathe in… Breathe in…//_**

Smiling up at him even through her brightly shimmering eyes, she saw that same something she had thought she had spotted just moments prior, glimmering there in that un-blinking gaze yet again. But this time, it caught. Slowly beginning to smolder and burn. His eyes becoming the hue typically only revealed to another at the core of a flame.

**_//… Look what's all around you…//_**

Reaching her hand back up again to touch the side of his cheek, he did likewise. Causing her stomach to suddenly clench heatedly, and her breath to catch in her pale throat as the sculpted strength of his large, rough hand came to hover beside her face. The muscles of his forearm rippling under the richly toned skin. A sheen of still present moisture running along the back of his hand and his knuckles. 

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

His hands were so exquisitely formed, despite the harsh usage they had been subjected to, and using just the tip of two of those lean, calloused fingers which he feathered across her skin in the gentlest of caresses, he caught a single bead of moisture that had managed to fall unknowingly down the softness of her skin… and in a touch so hauntingly similar to first one he had ever bestowed upon her, he brought that single, captured tear to her mouth. 

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

Her heart stopped… and then began to pound out a furious rhythm within her breast. His eyes were full of primal intensity and feral sensuality. He was so close, that the heat from his body invading the space surrounding her. She was surrounded by the intoxicating scent of his wet skin, and throbbing need pooling like molten lava down deep inside of her body in response to the awareness she saw in those eyes.

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

He rubbed the tip of his fingers gently over her mouth. Tracing the curve of her bottom lip, and smoothing the saltiness of her tear over the satiny skin. Causing a shiver to run down her spine when he lingered. Applying the slightest of pressure to her bottom lip so that her mouth parted, and she could taste his skin… Something intimate within her clenched tightly at the gesture. It was as if he had somehow known what she had been thinking earlier as she had watched him bathing. As if he had in that moment somehow read her innermost desires, her deepest fantasies. 

**_//… Look what's all around you…//_**

And the way he studied her mouth, before looking back up to her with such an incredible hunger blazing outward within that enrapturing gaze, made her realize that in some way, he had done just that. 

He had known all along.

Her mouth had gone dry, and she could feel her pulse thrumming richly in her veins as her body trembling slightly in reaction. Even after his touch had fallen away, he had continued to stare at her. The silvery reflection from the surface of the water behind her being hit by the light of the setting sun, raced along his skin, and dancing hypnotically across his intense features.

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

In that moment, he had told her yet again how it was that he felt. Just like he had the last time they had shared such intimate contact with one another, here in this atrium, the night following the entire sniper fiasco. 

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

That night, she had turned him away. Rejecting him mere seconds before his mouth would have touched hers for the first time. Mere moments before the taste of him would have flooded her senses, and there would have been no going back.

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

Her rejection of that moment in which he had laid himself so vulnerably open to her had cut him to the bone, yet here he was, doing it again. This time because she had finally initiated the contact between them. Wanting him to know what it was that she was feeling for him. That it wasn't just one-sided. She felt their connection just as strongly as he did. And their bruising absence from one another's life had made her ache for him just as much as he had burned for her.

**_//… Look what's all around you…//_**

And this time, in that brief span of time in which he had touched her so movingly, she didn't turn away.

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

Something in their relationship had just fallen subtly into place. Altering it forever from that moment on.

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

And this time, she didn't try to fight it. She just accepted it. As she had finally begun to accept him. 

**_//… Breathe in…//_**

She didn't yet know where all of this was going, what road it would lead them both down… But she did know this. John was becoming as crucial to her as breathing. She wanted him in her life. Needed him there…

**_//… Look what's all around you…//_**

 And for that single moment in time, it was more than enough.

~*~*~*~*~ 

**_Your car crashed, Buckled up from heaven…_**

**_Feeling like its poison, when there's no one around…_**

**_Your whole life sectioned off from red ropes, wishing you could see who…_**

**_But you're stuck in the ground, with this mini side-show…_**

****

**_Let the scenes go, it's obvious that you won…_**

**_Would you say it feels slow? Would you stay home?_**

**_How do you feel?_**

**_It's how do you feel suffocated…_**

****

**_Breathe in… Breathe in… Breathe in…_**

**_Look what's all around you._**

**_Breathe in…Breathe in…Breathe in…_**

**_Look what's all around you._**

****

**_Taking off in circles, Wondering if it's worth it…_**

**_You're innocent and ignoble, _**

**_But this main line system, Has a glitch in it…_**

**_Its ignorance has been shown…_**

****

**_When you realize it's paid for,_**

**_Wondering where the story's gone,_**

**_It's how do you feel…_**

**_It's how do you feel suffocated…_**

****

**_Breathe in… Breathe in… Breathe in…_**

**_Look what's all around you._**

**_Breathe in… Breathe in… Breathe in…_**

**_Look what's all around you._**

****

**_Doesn't matter if you run the race,_**

**_Doesn't matter if you're gonna win…_**

**_When you're taking off a road,_**

**_And you're locked on to the car,_**

**_It's ok…_**

****

**_Life's a daisy, far too busy, Never stops…_**

**_Feeling heavy,_**

**_Tried to steady,_**

**_It's all you've got…_**

****

**_Breathe in… Breathe in… Breathe in…_**

**_Look what's all around you._**

**_Breathe in… Breathe in… Breathe in…_**

**_Look what's all around you._**

****

**_~*~_**

****

Hopefully it won't take me so long to get "So Are You To Me" completed… but until then, please take a moment and let me know what you think! Did I do justice to that scene?

This one was definitely the longest one in the series so far… but hopefully it will be well received!

So, till next time… 


End file.
